


Growing Up

by LoosenYourCorset



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Fluff, I mean it's not really Peterick but it focuses on them so, Kid Fic, Peterick, ends right before the hiatus, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:35:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1769233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoosenYourCorset/pseuds/LoosenYourCorset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternatively titled: The Three Stages of Pete and Patrick's Friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Up

When Pete and Patrick are kids, their parents are friends from work and just being in the same neighborhood. Pete is five years older at eight and doesn't want to play with the three year old toddler from next door but his mother insists, saying that if he's good and hangs out with him she will buy him a new toy. Pete obliges and goes over whenever his mom goes out and he doesn't have school, leaving Patrick's mother in charge. As kids usually do, they bicker and fuss and sometimes Patrick pulls Pete's hair a little too hard so Pete does the same thing back. He learns quickly that that makes Patrick cry and if his own mom finds out, he gets a time out. Patrick's mom is really nice though. She bakes them cookies and lets Pete feed little bites to Patrick, who still mostly only eats baby food. Sometimes she even takes them to the park, and Pete pushes Patrick in the baby swing until he gets going good enough to keep the momentum up himself, and then he gets in the big kid swing.

At Patrick's fourth birthday party, Pete catches his party hat on fire and singes off a spot of his hair. Every time Patrick sees it, he laughs wildly and wants to touch it. This annoys Pete, but not enough to make him angry and he always lets Patrick play with it anyway.

~  
Somewhere around ten years later, Patrick is a short thirteen year old with no enjoyment for school and a raging love for music. Pete has taken up an instrument, the bass guitar. Patrick is jealous and one day while Pete is at work, because he's totally old enough to have a job and Patrick has to go to an after school club like a dork, he sneaks into Pete's room (although it's not technically sneaking if Pete's mom is home and knows he's in there). He picks up the guitar and sits in the desk chair, strumming at it and pretending he's actually good. Pete promised to teach him one day but he's been too busy, so Patrick makes himself happy by just playing it badly for awhile every now and then.

Except this time is different because he breaks a string, and considering Pete doesn't always know when Patrick does this or that he even does it at all, Patrick gets a little worried that Pete is gonna be super pissed. Pete tended to have a bad temper. He never took it out on Patrick but then again, Patrick had never given him a reason to. He was pretty sure this was a good enough reason to.

He stares at the guitar for twenty minutes before grabbing it up and rushing it down the stairs, yelling goodbye to Pete's mom before taking the thirty second walk home. He's careful not to get stopped by his mother and takes it to his room, throwing it on the bed like it has suddenly become too hot for him to touch. With his allowance he could replace the string really easy, but not without help and not without acceptable permission from his mom to take the bus into town. Besides, she'd only tell him to confess his mistake to Pete and he didn't wanna do that. He wanted to take it to the music shop downtown, have the nice old man who owned the place fix it up for him, then bring it back to Pete's room looking virtually unharmed.

Patrick picks up the broken string and nearly pulls it right off of the guitar, but he's afraid pulling it off would only make it worse. He hears a car drive by and walks to the window cautiously, like anyone and everyone could see inside and figure out what has happened. When he looks down onto the street, Pete waves to him. He's home from work and Patrick gives him a fairly guilty smile. Shit. If there was only one person in the world who could figure that look out, it was Pete. He watches him go inside the house and then turns around again, running a hand through his hair as he stares at the guitar that's totally going to get him killed.

He waits all evening. No word comes from the Wentz household to the Stump household about a missing guitar and he's sure that for one night, he can breathe a sigh of relief.

The next day is a Saturday and Patrick knows that Pete has band practice every weekend without fail, unless there's a snow storm because after all, it is Chicago. But it's nearly summer now and Patrick is positive that there's no chance of snow, however hard he wished for it to just start falling. When he goes downstairs, Pete is there eating cereal out of an unnecessarily large bowl, which he does a lot. It makes Patrick wonder sometimes if they have cereal at his house. He walks past Patrick to go watch TV in the living room, muttering a very food-filled good morning to him. He seems happy now, but Patrick's only option is starting to become clear and he is well aware that Pete's happy mood is about to end.

He's trying to draw the whole situation out, so he waits until Pete has depleted an entire box of Lucky Charms before joining him in the living room. He smells like cologne and looks way older than Patrick, with stubble and muscles and a few tattoos. Patrick is still just a chubby kid, but Pete's an adult with a job and a band and like, girlfriends and stuff. The realization of this makes Patrick feel even younger.

"I may or may not have, um, stolenyourguitarafterIbrokethestring," Patrick says in way too big of a hurry, and Pete turns to stare at him on the couch with his eyebrows furrowed.

"All I got was 'I may or may not have' and then you lost me," Pete replies. "You're going to have to be clearer than that, kid."

The nickname makes Patrick roll his eyes and groan internally, as if he didn't feel like enough of a kid already. He simultaneously loves and hates that nickname. "I said I broke a string on your guitar. One of them, anyway. And I stole it and brought it home with me."

Pete is quiet for a moment, a longer moment than Patrick can handle. "Which one?"

Patrick didn't think about it until now, which one. It didn't ever occur to him that it was the red one, and he tells him as much. He hopes the fact that it's Pete's favorite of the two doesn't change anything too much, and he silently wonders if Pete's gonna punch him in the face. He's seen that happen to another guy and he doesn't particularly want it to happen to him.

And then Pete lets out a laugh. "Well, hell. Good. I needed to replace those strings anyway, they're old. I just didn't have a reason. You pretty much did me a favor," he says and grins at Patrick, who is open-mouthed and annoyed at himself.

"I thought you were going to, like, murder me or something," Patrick says, almost mad that he got so worried and Pete didn't even seem to be the least bit angry.

"I don't like that you didn't tell me, and if it happens again you should definitely not steal it, but it's cool. Mistakes happen, you know?"

After that, Pete takes Patrick into the city to the music shop and buys some new strings. He even buys Patrick his own acoustic guitar so that he doesn't have to use Pete's anymore. The old guy who owns the place says that if Patrick is willing to put in the effort and work hard, he'll give him free lessons three days a week after school. Patrick agrees, because it's better than the after school club and he'd much rather be learning how to play the guitar.

When they leave, Patrick thanks Pete a thousand times and holds his guitar case proudly against his chest, even though there's a handle he can use to carry it.

Throughout Patrick's teenage years they have many moments like this, many moments where Patrick worries too much and Pete makes things better. Right before he turns seventeen, they start their own band. By that point Patrick can play the guitar, the drums, and a good amount of piano. He sings in the shower occasionally, and Pete listens outside the door whenever he manages to catch him doing it. Patrick doesn't see what the big deal is but Pete thinks there's a golden opportunity to be taken advantage of.

~

Fast forward nine more years and their band is big. Bigger than either Pete or Patrick could have ever imagined, because that's not really where they were trying to go with it. But they aren't complaining in the slightest. They're very happy. Patrick still doesn't see what the big deal about his voice is but he figures that whatever Pete hears, the fans must be hearing it too if they cared enough to buy their albums and pay for tickets to their concerts.

It's the little things about life now that Patrick enjoys. The fact that Pete still has his red guitar and made a necklace out of the string Patrick broke that one time. How Joe lets Patrick comb his hair when they're bored on the bus, and how Andy writes friendly notes on the table in permanent marker that will most likely never come out. Even his hats, which there are plenty of. He loves those.

And through all that, Patrick is still Pete's best friend and vice versa. Pete still calls him kid even though Patrick is twenty-five and insists that he's an adult now. But he wouldn't let Pete stop calling him that even if he was ninety.

On stage, when Pete goes a little overboard with the highly-public displays of affection Patrick doesn't mind. It's friendly. They love each other and it makes no difference, regardless of what the tabloids want to print. All in all their friendship is more than rock solid, and one day on tour Patrick promises he'll always be there for Pete. Pete gets a little dramatic and says that he would take a bullet for Patrick, and Patrick can't help but shake his head and then agree. 'Cause yeah, of course he would do the same for Pete.

It's right before they all decide they need to take a break of an undetermined amount of time that they say this to each other. Times are dark for them right now, but they needed to say it because they both know what is coming. And if they aren't going to be seeing each other every day or talking on the phone all the time they needed to make sure they both knew that no matter what, if the other one needed them they'd be there.

That's how it always was for Pete and Patrick, and that's how it always will be.


End file.
